The Philadelphia Flyers have made it apparent that their rebuild is anything but ordinary. In a position to make the postseason in the first “official” season of their rebuilding process, a lot has gone right to contribute to their success. And that has a lot to do with their ability to find reclamation projects — players with low value that become important with some time.
In 2023-24, some examples of said reclamation projects include Sean Walker, Nick Seeler, and Rasmus Ristolainen. Those three defensemen are why they have one of the best defenses in the NHL, yet none of them are getting first-pairing minutes. The Flyers have shown the impact of good depth better than anyone.
But how does this relate to the Flyers’ rebuild? Well, they have decent depth, but they are still in a spot where they’ll need more. Aside from Matvei Michkov, their prospect pool isn’t particularly strong. He’s definitely carrying the load as of now.
Sure, more draft picks (which the Flyers thankfully have a lot of) can help with that, but will it be enough to put them into true Stanley Cup contender status alone? It’s tough to say, but likely not unless they take the initiative to land another potential superstar.
A big reason for the Flyers’ success in 2023-24 has been due to them turning one team’s trash into their treasure. Instead of trading draft picks for middle-of-the-lineup pieces, these types of players could be what helps them emerge in the future if they lack firepower.
Continued Progression Is Essential
Progression is obviously vital for a good team in the NHL. The Flyers themselves have seen it, and so have contenders around the league in some form. However, there comes a time when a team’s best players can no longer progress. If a contender has all its star players at their absolute peak, that’s a good thing. But if star players are no longer getting better, how will said team get better?
If there aren’t enough players on a roster to make up for the lack of constant improvement, that’s where teams can start to regress. Every club has some talented players, some that get better, and some that get worse from where they were the season prior. It’s inevitable. The issue comes when the regression outweighs the progression. That’s when good teams lose their favor a bit.
Someone like Cam Atkinson hasn’t been what he once was for the Flyers with just 28 points in 56 games this season with top-six minutes and a poor rating in both expected and actual goal percentages. Fortunately, that hasn’t mattered too much with the progression of a player like Joel Farabee on the offensive side and the defensemen listed before. That has allowed the Flyers to get better from where they were in 2022-23 even though a “star” such as Travis Konecny hasn’t taken a step up from where he was previously.
This ties into reclamation projects because they’re usually cheap to get — or at least for the upside that they provide. Take Walker, a cap dump by the Los Angeles Kings to give themselves more flexibility in the offseason last summer — he’s been incredible. And they paid the Flyers to take on his contract. Without him, the Orange and Black aren’t nearly as good as they have been this season.
Seeler is another example of this, signed as a free agent by the Flyers and a player who essentially retired for a season in 2020-21. Making the league-minimum salary this season, he has been a pivotal defensive defenseman for the roster — even more so than he was in 2022-23, a great season in its own right.
But at some point, these players fade. Instead of becoming dependent on them in the long term, finding new players just like them can start the process over again. It’s not easy to hit on them, but with enough tries it can be done. There’s some risk involved in committing time to players who aren’t a sure thing, but it helps save draft capital. The Flyers need as much drafting power as they can get, so they might want to find continued progression in other ways.
Flyers Will Be Hard-Pressed to Find Another Star
Considering where the Flyers are in the standings, it will be tough for them to find a star player in the 2024 NHL Draft unless they are able to trade up. It’s much harder to land a star late in drafts than it is earlier in them, and this applies to every single class. For the Flyers in particular, they were unable to land many impact players in drafts during the 2010s because they were always around the middle of the standings.
Related: What Caused the Flyers’ Last Rebuild to Fail
And that’s their exact scenario this season. If their success continues into the future, they will need to make up for a likely lack of star potential in their system with cheap players that can make up for that output. Michkov cannot do it all himself.
There are a few ways that Stanley Cup teams can be built, but one of the easiest is through losing a lot of games for a few years, getting good prospects through that, and relying on said stars to win. But the Flyers don’t really have that, and it’s unlikely for that to happen. So they’ll have to improvise.
If the Flyers can preach depth throughout their lineup with scoring upside and a couple of star players at the top, they could contend for a Stanley Cup. The Vegas Golden Knights didn’t have several star players when they won last season, but it was depth that got them there. The Flyers might have a similar approach.
Instead of spending valuable draft capital to trade for non-star players, they can be created for cheap through free agency or much smaller trades. It will save necessary assets so that the Flyers can get star players in those bigger deals. Instead of trading a haul for a second-pairing defenseman or middle-six forward, they can sacrifice the time and effort to make one. The process will have to be replicated a few times as that player starts to regress, but it would allow for depth to be a non-issue and extend the Flyers’ contending window.
If the Flyers can’t get stars or incredible depth through the draft, reclamation projects might be the route they go in. That has been the case this season, so it could be something they preach moving forward.
